About This Recipe
This cranberry relish stays raw. Finely chopped berries and peeled orange rest with honey until their juices gather at the bottom of the bowl. Serve it chilled, with some texture still in the fruit. There’s no simmering step or jelly-like set.
Recipe
Honey Cranberry Relish with Fresh Orange
Finely chop raw cranberries and peeled orange, then rest them with honey. A chilled relish with a fresh texture, distinct from cooked cranberry sauce.
3Ingredients
Yield: 8 servings
- 250 g fresh cranberries
- 200 g peeled orange flesh, seeds removed
- 4 tablespoons honey
Ingredient amounts scale; instructions show the original batch. Cooking times and pan sizes may need adjustment. Season to taste. Honey grams use US measures at 20°C and 17.5% moisture, a density estimate; weigh your honey for precision.
Instructions
- 1Prepare the fruitRinse the cranberries and drain them well. Discard any soft or spoiled berries, then weigh 250 g. Peel the oranges, remove seeds and any thick loose pith, and weigh 200 g edible flesh. The orange weight excludes peel and discarded seeds.
- 2Chop in short pulsesPut the cranberries and orange flesh in a food processor. Pulse briefly, scraping down the bowl, until the pieces are finely chopped but still distinct. Stop before the mixture becomes a smooth puree. You can chop the fruit with a knife instead, keeping the pieces small and even.
- 3Mix in the honeyTransfer the chopped fruit and all its juice to a bowl. Stir in the honey thoroughly, scraping the spoon so the measured amount goes into the mixture. Use liquid honey for easier mixing.
- 4Rest in the refrigeratorCover and refrigerate for 1 hour. Stir once during the rest so the honey reaches any fruit that was above the liquid. The resting period is included in the total recipe time.
- 5Stir and serve chilledStir from the bottom just before serving and divide into eight condiment portions. Spoon some fruit and juice into each portion rather than serving only the dry fruit from the top. Keep the remaining relish covered in the refrigerator.
Estimated nutrition per serving
58.05 calories · 0.07 g fat · 15.35 g carbohydrate · 0.41 g protein · 1.04 mg sodium
Serving: 1 of 8 servings
Calculated from ingredient weights and USDA FoodData Central: 171722, 169097, 169640. Estimates use ingredient input weights; actual portions, brands and cooking losses vary. Omitted nutrient values are unavailable, not zero.
A Raw Relish, with Some Bite Left in It
The food processor does the work here. Short pulses break up the cranberries while leaving small pieces that you can see and feel. A long continuous blend makes a different, much smoother mixture.
Cooked cranberry sauce softens the berries with heat. This relish keeps the fruit raw and gets its texture from chopping. The hour in the refrigerator gives the honey time to mix with the fruit juices; it is not a cooking or gelling step.
Flavor intensity uses an editorial culinary scale: 1 is mild and 5 is bold. These are tasting suggestions, not laboratory measurements.
Sources: UC Agriculture and Natural Resources: Honey flavor and cooking; USDA FoodData Central: ingredient composition; FoodSafety.gov: refrigerating perishable foods.
1 = mild, 5 = bold. Editorial pairing guidance, not laboratory measurements; jars vary.
- Clover
- Fresh orange
- Wildflower
- Tart cranberries
- Buckwheat
- A darker fruit relish
Get the Honey Buyer's Cheat Sheet (free PDF)
16 varieties on one page — color, flavor, best use and what a fair price looks like — from the 304 honeys we track.
Weigh the Orange after Peeling
The formula uses 200 g edible orange flesh. Peel and seed enough fruit to reach that weight rather than assuming one orange will do it. Orange sizes and the amount of rind vary.
Remove thick pieces of loose pith if they come away easily. The recipe does not use the peel or a whole unpeeled orange, so it has a different bitterness and texture from a rind-in relish.
Mix the Honey All the Way Through
Clover keeps the flavor mild. Wildflower adds a floral note that remains noticeable in a raw preparation. If your honey is crystallized, loosen it gently before measuring, then let it return to room temperature before mixing.
The fruit may release more liquid as it rests. Stir that juice back through before serving so the measured honey is distributed across the bowl. Extra honey added at the table changes the stated formula and nutrition estimate.
Serve a Small Spoonful
Use this as a chilled condiment alongside a roast dinner, or spoon a little over plain ricotta. The honey and ricotta guide has other ways to use that pairing. Honey roasted walnuts make a crunchy accompaniment if you serve the relish with cheese.
Make it close to the meal and keep it covered in the refrigerator. Serve it chilled in a small bowl, replenishing from the refrigerator as needed. The FoodSafety.gov chilling reference linked here covers the general handling of perishable foods.
Nutrition and Portioning
The estimate uses 250 g raw cranberries, 200 g peeled orange flesh and all four tablespoons of honey, divided by eight. It excludes the discarded orange peel and seeds.
Each portion should include a little of the collected juice. Draining that away would also remove some of the dissolved honey and make the serving differ from the ingredient-based estimate.
Choosing the Honey
Use Clover Honey or Wildflower Honey for the flavor described in this recipe. See our honey selection guide for other culinary choices.
